Spring cleaning for your networks
Spring cleaning is often associated with cleaning out the sand, salt and other built-up winter soot. However, spring cleaning shouldn’t just be for your home. Most people spend 40 hours a week at work, and even the less physical aspects of an office could use some tender loving care. Consider cleaning up your networks. It’s essential to keeping them secure and running smoothly.
Your networks are the basis on which your business runs. If they aren’t secured, you can lose valuable data to cybercriminals. Our managed IT staff can help you through this process and monitor your security in the future.
Here are a few tips to get started.
Encrypt and secure your wireless network
If you set up your Wi-Fi network years ago, you may be using easily hackable, outdated encryption. The current standard for Wi-Fi protection is Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 — or WPA2. Second, make sure your wireless network has as random of a name as possible, avoiding dictionary words. Seasoned hackers have a list of the top 1000 most common network names with a list of passwords that could likely crack your wireless network. A unique name makes that network more difficult to find. Lastly, create a lengthy password with a mix of letters, symbols and numbers. You’ve likely already been warned about passwords time and again — to much frustration. There’s a reason for that. Get creative and create a password of more than 16 characters for the most protection. Remember, most Wi-Fi devices will store this password, so the aggravation of entering a long, complicated password should be minimized.
File away your old data
Don’t let clutter clog your network and slow it down. File away anything on your network you haven’t touched in the last few months. This is also a great time to organize files into one spot and back them up on a data recovery service. Emails should also be deleted or properly archived. Few things are more overwhelming than a cluttered inbox. While deleting unnecessary correspondence, organize other emails into labeled folders.
Determine space in your bandwidth
As you clean out your network, monitor the space in your bandwidth, which is the amount of data that can be transferred from one point to the next during a given time. As a business grows, it’s possible that its bandwidth may need to as well.
Talk with employees
No matter how secure your network and password are, daily use can still compromise it to cybercriminals. Teach employees about best practices with password creation and teach them how to recognize spam emails and hyperlinks. Additionally, limit access to your company’s critical data to as few people as possible.
Filter network traffic
Give your employees a leg up by filtering the traffic that enters your network. Use pop-up blockers and email filtering services to monitor any suspicious content that could be coming into your network.
Get rid of old devices
Old, unused devices can not only slow down your network, but they can also be a vulnerable access point for cyberthreats. Unplug and properly store or dispose of those unused fax machines, printers, copiers, computers and phones.
